The Green and the Brown
A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany

This study provides the first comprehensive discussion of conservation in Nazi Germany.

Frank Uekoetter (Author)

9780521848190, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 August 2006

246 pages
23.3 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.457 kg

"...a much-needed synthesis of the history and historiography of Nazi conservation, a subject which has received growing scholarly attention in the past decade." -Thomas Lekan, European History Quarterly

This study provides the first comprehensive discussion of conservation in Nazi Germany. Looking at Germany in an international context, it analyses the roots of conservation in the late nineteenth century, the gradual adaptation of racist and nationalist thinking among conservationists in the 1920s and their indifference to the Weimar Republic. It describes how the German conservation movement came to cooperate with the Nazi regime and discusses the ideological and institutional lines between the conservation movement and the Nazis. Uekoetter further examines how the conservation movement struggled to do away with a troublesome past after World War II, making the environmentalists one of the last groups in German society to face up to its Nazi burden. It is a story of ideological convergence, of tactical alliances, of careerism, of implication in crimes against humanity, and of deceit and denial after 1945. It is also a story that offers valuable lessons for today's environmental movement.

1. The Nazis and the environment: a relevant topic?
2. Ideas: diverse roots and a common cause
3. Institutions: working towards the Führer
4. Conservation at work: four case studies
5. On the paper trail: the everyday business of conservation
6. Changes in the land
7. Continuity and silence: conservation after 1945
8. Lessons.

Subject Areas: Social issues: environment & green issues [Children's / Teenage YXZG], Educational: Geography [YQG], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]